Objective and Subjective are such strange phenomena. They seem so simple, separate and obvious. I vaguely remember when I started to become aware of the the way the two very different realms of reality began to bleed together and obfuscate each other. It was a slow process and it had an element that I could only call seductive. I think I was largely lucky and nothing more than that because I caught it before it caught me.

I began to have strange experiences when I was 13 years old. I freshman was high school when I started to see my first occasional shadows. They came at times of severe stress generally when my family was having some kind of a problem. Mom and Dad were going through a bad time in they’re relationship and they were fighting once or twice a week, sometimes more often. I cannot ever remember these times resulting in violence b ut I do recall sitting in the shadows at the top of the front stairs to the second floor listening. I rarely slept as it was. These shadows started to appear late at night in my bedroom on the walls or ceiling. They didn’t have any particular form although my mind was capable of seeing some kind of a shape. The experience was intense, I was alone at night when it happened and it was frightening at first. I told no one about these things. Over time gear changed to curious and then finally I felt a strong urge to protect myself.

I was raised catholic and I remember praying to God for help, but God did not answer. This caused my stress to increase. I had been reading my school assignments. I read some political books my mother had given me, books I still have and Pulp Fiction for leisure. Feeling abandoned by God, the increased stress and the intense sense that I was under some sort of spiritual attack I decided to meditate. In these meditations I went inward and started to listen to my own thoughts. I also learned to feel and relax my body. If I focused on anything it was to try astral projection but that never happened. There was a part of me that truly believed that this was a spiritual phenomena and I still think it is easy to see why. At the same time that another part of me thought that it had to be something else, something with a scientific explanation. The spiritual aspect was extremely seductive. It felt good to think their might be something extraordinary about me. That’s the seduction and if it was true I wanted to understand it from what I took to be an objective point of view. Thus my reading changed. I started reading out side of school nonfiction, psychology, philosophy, physics, biology, mysticism and the occult.

I still kept this a secret but when I asked my Mother to find something for me, on any particular topic she would get it for me. She was an RN but she had close friends that worked at NASA. I didn’t ask often, which I regret now and I never told her why. I think she knew something was going on but she didn’t ever press it. I didn’t talk to my father or ask him for books and such because at the time he didn’t strike me as the type, a thing I also regret now the he too has passed. At the time it struck me as the kind of thing one didn’t bring up in casual conversation. I felt there might have been negative consequences. IN retrospect I realize that this was an assumption. It is true that ridicule was likely but not guaranteed. It was at the age of fourteen that I first read General Relativity: A theory any man can Understand. I remember thinking that Einstein must have had a strange idea about what any man was, but I did take something away from the effort. The World you live in is dependent on your perspective, your frame of reference. The way the world looks, how it feels and smells is all dependent on your inner world. Its more than attitude. I fully realized that this wasn’t what Einstein meant by “frames of reference in motion.” That’s just what I took from it. Correct or incorrect it didn’t matter as the experiences began to fade and I became more relaxed. By the time I graduated High School I only had memories of the original experiences left and you all know how funky memory can be.

My Mother always regretted that she didn’t try for medical school. I remember her saying that she didn’t think it was possible as no one told her she could. So she made sure to tell all three of us that we could do anything we wanted to do. I feel to this day that she really believed that and so did I. Its in this way that the pendulum swings from far on one side to way far on the other side. Otherwise I was woefully unprepared for college. I made the mistake of thinking it was just an extension of High School. I also chose a hard science major, Physics and Chemistry. My private readings had shifted more towards history and the Occult. I had taken an interest in perception, with the physical senses. I was taking psychology on the side because I was interested in it and was unaware of the fact that it wouldn’t count for any of my electives. Like I said, unprepared. That was the first blow to my world view. How can Science be objective if the very tools we use to observe, our senses, are subjective in nature. Nobody likes to hear that and sometime they get really offended when I bring it up in causal conversation. I’ve been yelled at about it rather than given a constructive counter argument. I must have struck a nerve. I know I found it unsettling.

I started my collegiate journey at the local community college. That was where I encountered the notion that we are only front of the mend aware of about 1% of all the information our Brain (?) processes. Discomfort changed to fascination and curiosity, you know, the thing that killed the cat. College was a more open environment. There was always some one talking about the stranger things. While I was at the community college I listened more than I spoke. I tend to be more or less silent in new places until I get comfortable. There was topics like Mysticism, the Occult and various subjects from the worlds of New Age and Paganism. This would continue at main campus when I made the transition. There I had a broader circle of friends, some old many new. It was there that the shadows returned. Maybe it was a stress reaction as the subject matter I was studying had increased in pace and difficulty. It might have been that I was over complicating the whole mess. It also could have been that I was undermining my subject matter subconsciously while I was trying to master it. I can’t really say for sure. The shadows though no longer inhabited the night, they now came out in the light, in crowds and in small groups. I began to watch the people around me as these odd shadows crept across the floor. I wanted to see if any of them noticed. None of them ever seemed to or if they did they in now way acknowledged it, I though of it sort of like living right next to train tracks. The first few days you can’t help but notice the trains as the pass, rattling the apartment and waking you in the middle of the night. But in a short time you no longer notice. I thought this might be the thing with the shadows. Of course there was always the possibility it was some sort of mean trick or twisted practical joke. There is danger in these types of thoughts, I understand it now but at the time it was truly a mystery. The shadows looked so real and I couldn’t figure out how they were being cast.

I was sleeping less and meditating more. My mind was getting noising and fucking with me, causing me to react in ways I didn’t understand and didn’t like. I felt I had to get on top of this thing before it got on top of me. So the meditations became about quieting my mind. I was looking for something Carlos Castaneda called internal dialog. The mind talks to itself it seems, not that unusual of a concept I thought. I found myself in a small experimental group. I was gently nagged into it. We started with the Ouija Board and moved on to ghost hunting and other stuff. I was the baby sitter, for the most part, watching to be sure things didn’t to far out of hand. Emotions and moods can run high and become unpredictable in these types of circumstances. A lot of baffling, weird and frightening stuff happened. Now I wonder if I unwitting contributed to it. Shadows became things, demons mostly. I started hearing things. Voices and clear words. There was no murmuring and whispering to start, just voices, some familiar, some not, almost all of them unpleasant. One might say the the occult experimental group and the change in the visions and the appearance of voices are some how connected. I can understand that. There was something about these visions though that was different, they had a two dimensional quality like a movie. That didn’t change the way my body reacted to them. The same physiological sensations as if one is surprised or about to be attacked or even shot at.

The things about running head long into one’s limitations is that the experience is most profound when the individual doesn’t believe thy have any limitations. The experience can be crippling. Needless to say college and I filed for divorce. The hallucinations and voices only became louder and more present. Even people I knew, except for two, would change, growing horns or taking on a demonic visage. I would begin to worry that I had said or done the wrong thing and upset people. I did seek treatment.

People tend to project onto other people their own experience, their own frame of reference of world view. I became aware of this by accident, I guess. Along with the increased psychotic symptoms there was also a growing, burning rage. I was keenly aware that I might hurt some one and I didn’t want to do that. It was becoming very difficult to baffle that surge of energy. Part of me felt that the person about to take the brunt of it deserved it, they had it coming. My mind had constructed the argument all based on several assumptions about their motives and their moral inclination, whether they were good or bad. It was my realization that these assumptions might be wrong, they were assumptions after all, beliefs shouldn’t be confused with facts. That baffled the rage and gave me the time to deal with it. I still paid a price, high blood pressure.

It is uncomfortable, but true. We all drink the Kool Aide. Often we don’t even know its Kool Aide and can’t discern who’s is filling our cup. That is the nature of the drink. IN a time with the reemergence or various ists and isms, though the on fringes it is good to be aware of the certainty that comes with that cup of Kool Aide. Humanity suffers from a terrible form of moral relativism. We understand that a action is immoral, such as beating some one or killing them. We all get this. Yet that damn Kool Aide helps to create an illusion of some great threat, a threat that must be confronted violently. This logic often has an appeal to vanity and fear. Once the point of view sets up like concrete then the actor is justified. If an opponent used the same tactic then its is simply more proof of their villainy. Dynamics like this have a way of becoming self perpetuating.

There was a time when I believed that if everyone would just settle down and try and talk to each other that this friction could be eliminated. I was young and Idealistic. Through dealing with the hallucinations I realized that some things or people will simply resort to violence. There will be no discourse. It is impossible for me to tell who will be and who will not. I am at an impasse. What to do in such a situation? Resist Violence with violence and risk becoming that which you fight. React peaceably and passively and run the risk of being crushed under foot. It will either be just a short period of a few years Nothing at all. or the beginning in a shift in the moods of populations everywhere.

When I called out to the divine in my youth I felt I got no answer, He or she, didn’t come, didn’t appear in my heart. I had always assumed that I had been abandoned. Maybe I have. Or, Maybe the Divine came to my aid. Just not in a way that I could see or feel. I don’t know how I managed to navigate all that. We human’s so desperately crave objective validation. If it was just luck I think I’ve blown probabilities out the window, not that my thoughts on the subject matter all that much.

In the end its simple faith, not in a book, or a place or a gender. The Divine is alien to us. I don’t know how it works, I don’t know what it is. It simply is. I try to listen for the sound of it. I make the effort to treat each person as an unknown until I know them. Respect is nothing more than simple manners. It is not torture, it doesn’t take extra effort. You just have to slow down and try and see clear and straight. So if you feel the current begin to drag you in a new direction remember to taste the Kool aide before you drink We may not be able to change the world but we can change the way we interact with it.

If you got all the way to here, I thank you and hope that it wasn’t too difficult of a read.

Civilized is a term that is often used to describe a people or nation. There are terms used that reflect on these notions of civilization such as deplorables. It is hard for an outsider such as myself not to notice what human beings are capable of and what they have accomplished. We have built a world, the world of people. This world of people lies inside a greater natural world. The human world is so vast, at least from my seat, that its takes us a great deal of effort and a great distance of travel to finally find these human free natural spaces. I much enjoy those natural spaces and I have found after spending some time, usually week to weeks, that when I find my way back to the human world I see and feel the technical comforts with new eyes and new hands. It is strange how I have to be away for a time to truly appreciate the wonders civilized humans have created.

If we take a moment and think about it there is only amazement at what has been accomplished. The Stone canyons of the great cities, mass transportation by rail or wheel on time most of the time. The machine coughs up currency when you ask for it, as long as you have enough available in your account. Flip a switch and on comes a light. Hot water is delivered to your sink or shower by some invisible entity. Busy people heading about their day all running on the same clock.

Amazing.

We can fix on the negative and the crumbling and lose sight of the wonders around us. The mind is a powerful and strange thing. Obviously these wonders were accomplished by planners, bosses and laborers, various skills in specialized sets. The educated have a tendency to undervalue skilled labor, I know I used to do it. Now I simply marvel at the skill with either numbers or trowel and hammer and wonder where all such knowledge came from. I hold the strange opinion that all this skill and knowledge has been generated by people. As I said the mind is an amazing thing.

Logic or the ability to think rationally is one of those things our minds allow us to do. People can rationalize about any situation, It can be a coping mechanism or a tool for destruction. I watch some dark documentaries on You Tube from crimes like serial rape or murder to coverage of this or that war along with news, Lots of people hurt or grieving visibly over the loss of the loved one(s) in very much the same way. Whether by a mass shooter, a serial killer, a 2000 pound block bluster or a hellfire missile. I am left wondering how these victims would react to each other even across national lines.

Are we still capable of seeing each other as people.

sometimes I think we do, that’s why so few of us can look over the pond at the horrors great countries are inflicting on the world. That we avoid staring unblinking at the pain an suffering in the world. What can one person with little means do anyway?

I’ve come to this conclusion: The Actor (any given individual) is always justified in their own mind for any Action they (any given individual) are about to undertake. This is called rationalization. There is a logic to it even though it may be inscrutable to an outsider. I came to this conclusion when thinking about serial killers, captains of industry and leaders of nations. When I strip away the position, the authority an look at the act itself, the level of premeditation, the tools used, the people affected and the penalty, if any. I find my self at an impasse. Obviously some people can kill massive numbers with out any real consequence. How can this be? All I can figure is how the individual and the people around them think about the act, the whys and wherefores.

IN other words how they rationalize it . As earlier stated.

The Actor is always justified in their own mind about the action they are going to undertake.

When I was younger it was easier to think about these things and make a judgement. Over time the net of judgment widened and then became tangled. My Grandfather was right. The older I get the more I realize how little I actually know. Everything comes into question. I am riddled with doubt and aware that I have so few facts.

So what is there that I can do?

I do one simple thing. I try and practice mental hygiene and use care to keep the way I think anchored and try and stay aware of the people in the world around me. Stay conscious of the consequences. I often find this exhausting. But is is necessary because I have been close to a terrible action in the past. That time I was doubly lucky as no one got hurt and I didn’t get locked up. I don’t want that situation to arise in my mind again.

This process can be exhausting.

I have a reason for writing this thing but it slipped away about a quarter of the way through the process. Win some lose some, I guess. I hope this is of some use and if not…

We will all loose and we all will be lost. It is an existential question. The terrible limitation on our little mortal lives.

We all know this to be true.

I have heard it said, more often in movies and stories than in real live conversations that no one wants to die alone. The reality, I think, is that we all do. Though there may be people around us who care or whom we care about and possibly that we all start to travel this road as a group, in the end it is a journey that we take alone. It is the same way that we cone into the world. There are people there when we finish but we still take the voyage by ourselves, even in the case of twins. These processes produce in us a great unknowing. We know that we came from some place and we suspect we are going someplace, possibly the same place, but these regions are beyond our reckoning as a group at the very least. As an individual one or many of us may have has some experience that causes us to know or believe we know something of one of these places or possibly both. This is individual knowledge and this knowledge is difficult to translate into the shared reality, that is the nature of the Mystical Experience. This is why I hold various ancient religious text within a narrow gaze. What ever experiences generated said text have been lost to the efforts of other more scheming individuals,. This topic is about as popular as death and politics. But it is important none the less for us living today.

We remain silent on these things mostly as rooted in them is the most powerful fear any human, except the foolhardy, experiences, the fear of the unknown. Our defense is to ignore. Humans with certain noteworthy exceptions, myself included, possess an amazing power hidden in their ability to concentrate, to focus. They can ignore so profoundly as to blot conscious knowledge from their minds. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is still there like a great stone wheel slowly grinding toward us from behind. We cannot out run it and we cannot hide from it. We do the only thing we can, we ignore it. The result is a creeping stress.

Add on top of this the stress of every day life as most of us experience and it becomes easy to see why people are getting sicker and sicker.

I have no idea what if anything can be done about it. Even if something can be done will the greedy powers that be take the time to even consider it?

We shall have to see.

I’ve said it before and I will say it now. We each have to find that thing we love and make time for it, be it thing, hobby, place or person. The only other suggestion is spend as much time as you can in the moment, after all we have only a few and it is best not to waste them.

Cards Drawn: The Last Judgement ( 20 Major Arcana, inverse), 5 of Swords, 6 of Cups (inverse), 4 of Wands, The Lovers (6 Major Arcana, inverse) and The King of Pentacles (inverse)

At first glance one might think that this would be a big yes as far as an Alien Invasion goes. There is though a particular card I am looking for to arrive in the obverse position and I have yet to see it. What I do pull from this reading is a bumpy October so expect an up tick in sightings especially in areas that are under stress. Forms of stress can be economic, ecological or military.

On the other hand November should be generally pleasant with fewer than normal;l sightings. Any encounters during this month could very well be of a more positive type, at least as far as the Alien encounters department.

Don’t forget to keep your photographic equipment, ie. cell phones handy as you might have an opportunity to catch a decent photograph, if you are into that kind of thing.

By the way, try to get the object in focus and if possible keep some earth bound object in the frame for the sake of scale and always remember, don’t freak out.